


On Top of the World

by heilz



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Breaking the Fourth Wall, M/M, bottom hannibal or nah, literal shit, wow this is SO bad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-10
Updated: 2014-08-10
Packaged: 2018-02-12 15:18:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2114790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heilz/pseuds/heilz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hannibal gets quite a scare when he unknowingly breaks the fourth wall and reads a fanfiction featuring none other than himself and his longtime bb Will.</p>
            </blockquote>





	On Top of the World

**Author's Note:**

> There are like fifteen things wrong with this fic and it took me way too long to write for what it's worth. I hope everyone likes plot holes :)
> 
> Also I reference my own work here because self promo is annoying unless I'm the one doing it c:
> 
> *Adds to list of shitty Hannibal shortfics*

As hindsight goes, Hannibal decided that giving Will his email address had been a terrible lapse in judgment. Of course, giving out any form of his personal contact information was a risk in itself, but he had marked Will as the type he could count on to be responsible with such a thing—and, in the long run, he supposed the action was more than a little out of character for him, but after being ignored via text by the man, he thought it best to have other means of contacting Will.

In other words, he was still a bit salty over being hit with the read.

But remorse was never far from an action so removed from Hannibal’s norm. He was quick to rediscover this as Will’s emails began crowding out every other mail in his inbox, all containing nothing but nonsense; one even contained a messy and rashly put poem that stated the fact that ‘Hannibal’ and ‘cannibal’ had only a one-letter differential.

While the poem had entertained Hannibal for no longer than a minute, the rest of Will’s mails did nothing more than put him off; how did a video of a _cat_ playing a _keyboard_ have any sort of relevance to…well…anything?

And though all other pranks of Will’s had ranked along different degrees of innocence, his most recent email from Will held a different story beyond the hyperlink.

Upon clicking the highlighted link, Hannibal pulled up an internet page that displayed a red-and-white screen adorned with more hyperlinks and an apparent consent button.

_‘This work may contain adult content. If you proceed you have agreed that you are willing to see such content.’_

Hannibal’s frown deepened a fraction, but nonetheless, he clicked ‘Proceed’ without first contemplating what he was about to see. He knew Will wouldn’t send him anything with a virus contained inside, but then again, Will had been unashamedly demonstrating his loose cannon qualities as of late.

Swiftly glancing to the upper left-hand corner of the screen, Hannibal read the name of the website: ‘Archive of Our Own’. Archive? Will had sent him something to read? Hannibal hoped it wasn’t another poem. The first one hadn’t been too annoying, but cheap novelty faded fast.

With no further ado, the next page loaded, and he was presented with what seemed to be an online work of fiction. Upon scrolling down, he found the title: “His Cannibal, At Noon”. As Hannibal hadn’t read the summary to begin with, he dubiously began reading.

And what a horrible mistake that had been.

The first name he read was ‘Will’—which wasn’t that strange of an occurrence, of course, as it was a common name and anyone had a right to use it in their own story. But the next name he came across was a bit more unusual, and the coincidence was undoubtedly laughing at him from the other side of the screen.

The next name he read was ‘Hannibal’.

But then the author specified further. Hannibal Lecter. Hannibal Lecter was reading about Hannibal Lecter. Hannibal Lecter and Will Graham. No, if this was a coincidence, then Hannibal was just as innocent as he portrayed himself to be. His chest felt tight—he hadn’t felt so _affected_ in so long. The work had already mentioned cannibalism…could it be?

Could someone, somehow, know that Hannibal was not in fact the blameless psychiatrist everyone perceived him to be?

But Hannibal instantly decided that was impossible. He would have _known._ There was absolutely zero percent chance that someone could witness a crime of his without squealing in some way. Hannibal hadn’t detected any strange movements from Jack Crawford or the rest of the FBI, and that meant everything at face value. Nothing had been done to tip them off, and Hannibal was still as innocent as ever, as far as they knew.

So what was this thing, indeed?

In his newborn fascination with the work, Hannibal began to read with added vigor. The writing wasn’t anything he was used to—every word he read held simple meaning behind it rather than the ones in intricate novels he read as a young man, in which he would have to analyze the Greek roots in English terms just to begin his overall comprehension of a single word. No, this work was simple, but it intrigued him more than anything had since meeting Will Graham.

He also found himself almost chuckling at how this author tried to explain Will and Hannibal’s characterizations. Every justification they supplied were much too simplistic, but Hannibal chose to ignore such a petty thing when what he was truly enraptured by was the plot itself. The fact that this person, whoever they were, knew that he was a cannibal, and that none but Will Graham believed so.

But something strange had been developing for quite some time in the story. As Hannibal read, he was repeatedly flung into situations that involved him and Will becoming _closer_ by the author. Now, it wasn’t totally out of line, as Hannibal _did_ want to know just who Will Graham was with greater intensity than what he had already discerned, but this was different.

The author was definitely leading him—or, the reader, in general—to believe that Will and Hannibal were becoming closer romantically.

Which, when it came down to it, didn’t off-put Hannibal in the least. He did find Will extremely interesting, and would take whatever means to figure him out, not unlike the world’s greatest puzzle. And if it took romantic emotions to solve the puzzle, so be it.

But this was…different. They were falling in love. As Hannibal read on, chapter after chapter, intrigued on so many levels by this strange work of all-too-real fiction, the plot progressed more and more until—

It was the middle of the seventh chapter. Hannibal stared at the writing before him, the words of a simpleton, of a common sheep. The Hannibal and Will of the story—the characters the author had apparently worked so hard on to characterize, were undressing, readying themselves for sex.

Now, Hannibal was not a prejudiced man. He hated the rude, and rudeness did not know race, gender, or sexuality. He had nothing against homosexuality, and knew that romantic feelings typically evolved into sexual ones, which was apparently what the author was attempting to get at. That Hannibal and Will were completely absorbed in their own love that it would either change one of them, or both of them.

Hannibal had never had sex with another man before, and that all trickled down to necessity; there was no need to be involved with men that way because it would have made him the sore thumb. He would have stood out in an unwelcoming way because society did not welcome homosexuals, which, regardless of whomever he’d been with in the past, is what he would have been regarded as.

But this author saw past that. They _desired_ such a destructive relationship—at least, more destructive than their current one—between Will and Hannibal. And while he knew there _were_ people that embraced all aspects of humanity such as this, he had never seen such a happening as writing it and throwing it out for the world to see. But he simply assumed that the anonymity of the internet had its own perks.

And that was all well and good, until Hannibal decided to persist in his reading and got to the actual beef of the chapter. Yes, everything had been dandy until Hannibal realized that he was a _bottom._

Hannibal Lecter was getting it up the ass by Will Graham.

Hannibal Lecter was _submitting_ himself to another person, and no matter if that person were the most interesting human being on the planet, the true Hannibal Lecter knew he had too much ego to fit a _dick_ inside of him.

And that ego was what took control as he exited the page, turned off his computer and poured himself some people-beer from his office cabinet.

Hannibal Lecter was certainly not a bottom in any sense of the word.

**Author's Note:**

> If you read this all the way through I deeply apologize but also thanks because this took me two hours to write (':
> 
> P.S. If you caught the fake fanfiction title reference you're pretty rad c:


End file.
